I'm Interested In Joining CK-9-What's Involved?

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We offer many levels of membership to match your available time with the position you select on the team.

The easiest membership levels requiring the least amount of your time involves a support role for the team either administratively, or just in training.

To actually participate in a call out search, you must become a fully certified Maryland Search Team Member (STM) yourself (includes getting STII certified). As a working person, STM takes about 6 months to a year 

depending on the time you have available (job, family, etc.) to train and study in order to prepare for the independent examinations (We do all the training for you). This usually means trying to make around 2 Sunday trainings a month (it's OK to arrive late or leave early at these), and some after work classroom trainings during a few other weeks. After certification as an STM, most people make 2-3 trainings a month just because it is fun and they like it; however, they are only required to make 1 Sunday training
session a month to stay active.

The most time consuming level is that of a dog handler. It starts with the team doing a quick evaluation of your dog, then generally it takes about 1.5 to 2 years or less to fully train you both as a Operational Dog Team for use in Maryland. You start training your dog right away at the same time you are training yourself for STM certification. You will want to attend many of our training sessions and talk to our handlers to get a good idea of the time commitment required both at home training your dog and at the team level.

But we want you to check us out fully and participate in a few training exercises before you decide to join, as SAR is not for everyone. So let me explain how things would work.

First, visit our web site (link is below) and hopefully it may answer some of your questions about the types of search activities we support. Use the navigation section on the left to see our Calendar (most events are optional attendance), Meet the Team, Meet the Dogs, event Photos, and FAQ/SAR facts and questions section. The FAQ section has a lot of answers to typical questions you may have. Then the plan would be for you to come to a few of our events, to meet us and see how we train.

See if you can come to a weekday (after work! ) training on Wednesday (see web site "Calendar"); it usually last 1-2 hours. And/or come to a team training session on a Sunday for all or part of it (0800-1400) to meet everyone and see the full scale training. During that day we will have you "flank/accompany" search teams through the woods on large area searches to see exactly what we are training for, the skills you will acquire and the physical demands. At Team trainings you will see our Command Trailer and most of the equipment we carry and use. These search teams will be either Air scent dog teams, Tracking/trailing dog teams, or People only Hasty teams. 

Dogs are a real joy to train in SAR. (A little over two thirds of our teammates have dogs which is a good mix). Please give me a heads up e-mail or phone call as to which sessions you will make in order to observe the dog training so we can be ready for you and ensure you have directions to the event. 

So please take time to meet us and get to know what SAR is really all about before you make your final decision. We hope it will be to join us!